The sylphs put a spell on you, you can no longer move. You lie on your back in the snow and stare at the frosty starry sky. And you feel good, it's so cold that it's warm. The last minutes of the album are a slow falling into eternal sleep...
Author: Przemysław Murzyn
Although born in Stockholm, Shida Shahabi is an artist of Iranian origin. Her parents fled the Iran-Iraq war and settled in Sweden, which naturally meant that little musical Shida was influenced by both Persian music and Western artists, mainly those played on MTV in the station's heyday, with an emphasis on rock and electronic alternative. Ultimately, however, Shida Shahabi's moved towards ambient with a touch of modern classical and musical experiment based on the sounds of the piano, with which the composer has been familiar since her early childhood years.
Shida has recorded several regular albums (two long albums and two EPs, to be precise) and has prepared a few movie soundtracks. This is how I first encountered her work. It was during a screening of "Falcon Lake", a young adult film with supernatural overtones. By the way, I really like this production, also thanks to the atmospheric soundtrack. And I remembered Shida Shahabi during this year's Splat!FilmFest, where I had the pleasure of seeing in every aspect a wonderful French film called "Else" directed by Thibault Emin.
I remember that after returning to the apartment, the first thing I did was to check if there was a soundtrack created by Shida - together with June Ha, whom I don't know much - on Spotify. Don't you wish, the world would be too beautiful. But instead it turned out that in September this year the artist released material titled "Sylph (Original Score)" and it is, in my opinion, phenomenal.
This title original score, however, does not refer to a film this time, but to a dance performance prepared by Icelandic choreographer Halla Ólafsdóttir. "Sylph" is a modern interpretation of "Les Sylphides", a ballet by Mikhail Fokine from the beginning of the 20th century, and the titular sylphides are ethereal spirits in pagan folk beliefs that take the form of women. As an extremely anti-dance person, it's hard for me to relate in any way to ballet itself or how the music fits into this form, but it doesn't stop me from enjoying the music itself.
The album consists of four songs: three long pieces, over ten minutes long, and one shorter piece, lasting less than three minutes. And it starts quite surprisingly, because the almost twenty-minute-long Sylvestris is a pure deep ambient, which opens with field recordings recorded probably in some cave, but later this composition spreads its wings beautifully, and we leave the cave together with the sylphs accompanying us to the north, shrouded in cold January forest blue.
Besides, the title itself, Sylvestris means forest in Latin. It's an extremely soothing composition, the atmosphere reminds me of older Alio Die albums, e.g. "Leaves Net". The music breathes peace, but is also shrouded in a fog of mystery, like a walk between tall pines, when airy silhouettes shrouded in white glow loom at the edge of your field of vision, and their tempting whisper clearly reaches your ears even from a distance. Does this music goes well with ballet? I don't know, but it's perfect for listening while half asleep.
However, track number 2, House of Sylph, is extremely different from its predecessor in terms of dynamics. This time, the basis is rhythmic loops, of which Shida successively layers more and more, introducing the listener into a kind of frenetic trance. A bit of techno, a bit of dub, and above all, modern tribal music, intertwined with calling drones, sometimes moving into slightly noisy areas. The sylphides move in increasingly narrow circles around the listener, confusing him and inducing unconditional submission. Despite the completely different dynamics of this composition compared to Sylvestris, the cool Scandinavian aura hovering over the music remains unchanged.
The third track, Moth, may be short, but it's full of dark ambient that reminded me of beautiful moments when I discovered the album "Horizons" by Northaunt. I suspect that Shida has never heard of this album, because they are slightly different musical worlds (though who knows...), but I see some parallels. And the flight of this moth is also an introduction to Blood Spa, the closing fragment of the album. And I have no idea whether in Shida Shahabi and Halla Ólafsdóttir's story the sylphs actually take us to a bloody spa, but if so, it is a very pleasant experience. Even if it is the last thing we will experience in life. This is probably the most pensive composition on "Sylph", based on processed cello sounds and female vocalizations. The sylphs put a spell on you, you can no longer move. You lie on your back in the snow and stare at the frosty starry sky. And you feel good, it's so cold that it's warm. The last minutes of the album are like slowly falling into eternal sleep.
I realize that "Sylph" was created for a clearly defined purpose, as part of a larger whole, but it does not change the fact that it is music that can be easily listened to in isolation from this ballet context. This material is fantastic when listened to at home, with headphones on. Shida Shahabi, in an extremely suggestive way, takes the listener away from the urban here and now, taking him on an incredible journey into the unknown.
Album: https://shida-shahabi.bandcamp.com/album/sylph-original-score
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